Hurricanes, humidity, expired expirations are costly threats to empty ships.
Hurricanes, humidity, expired expirations are costly threats to empty ships.
Hundreds of others covered the banks of Glasgow’s River Clyde a few weeks ago for the rare view of a small high-end cruiseway sailing upriver, almost in the city centre. The journey of Azamara, extremely cheerful socially remote spectators when their horn rings, regularly a sign of lively celebration. But this time, no one was there to salute on the deck of the shipment of 700 passengers, the few dozen members of their skeletal crew. After all, it was not a festive arrival: it was a live shipment, like all other shipments in the face of the brutal wake of the pandemic.
Since mid-March, only a small handful of the world’s approximately 400 cruise ships have been made up of passengers, all on hyperlocal routes. A few dozen sail around the world with determination, repatriating team members from around the world. The others are inactive in the purgatory of cruise ships, to sail commercially for the foreseeable future. (In the United States, the industry agreed not to resume operations until at least September 15).)
The challenge for many cruise lines? Leaving the pandemic inactive is not only bad for the company’s monetary performance, it is a possible death for its most esteemed assets: the ships themselves. From mechanical challenges to hurricane hazards and regulatory barriers that can constitute crime, this is a quagmire that the industry has never faced on this scale before.
The expense is huge. In a recent filing with the SEC, Carnival Corp., whose nine brands are the world’s largest cruise line, said its existing shipping and administration costs would be $250 million per month once all of its shipments were on hiatus. The company says it can’t wait for cruises to resume, a long-term item on a balance sheet that recorded losses of $4.4 billion in this quarter alone.
As with airplanes, the first challenge of keeping a cruise ship inactive is simply to find a position to park it. Up to 16,000 aircraft were grounded during the pandemic, hidden in dry, rust-proof positions ranging from airport hangars and asphalt to desert bones. Boats are also looking for the right situations to weather the storm.
There is not enough port area for each ship to dock at the same time, especially for giant ships that regularly bring up to 8,880 passengers and crew. This explains the festive sounds of the “return to basics” of the Azamara Journey in Glasgow (docked at a cargo port rather than at its very old extra cruise post in the city). Less fortunate ships still did not have an option to anchor at sea, avoiding materials and fuel at the nearest port.
This week, an organization of 15 shipments from Carnival Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruises were near the Bahamas, according to Cruisemapper.com, a shipping tracking site. The 6,680-passenger Symphony of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, departs from the Dominican Republic.
According to Bill Burke, retired vice admiral in the U.S. Navy. And Carnival’s Head of Maritime Services, taking the company’s 105 ships to their resting destinations, 20 in the Caribbean, 40 in Europe, 35 in Asia and 10 in the Eastern Pacific, is a procedure that will continue until the third quarter of the year.
Parking is just the first painful point. To keep things in shape and avoid an expensive stay (a bit like battery death if you leave the car standing too long), the boats will also have to keep operating.
“Modern cruise ships are designed or built to be simply off and left on a pier,” says Monty Mathisen, editor-in-chief of Cruise Industry News. “You’re talking about massive amounts of machinery, electronics and even metal that require maintenance, verification and prevention.”
Basically, this comes to one of two scenarios, known in the industry as the “hot” or “cold” tray.
In hot-rolled, the maximum systems continue to operate; in a bloodless rolling, others stop, such as ballasts, turbines and gearboxes. Cold diapers are also accompanied by additional precautions, such as sealing external doors and windows, moving sheets in a dry place, placing mattresses on the edges, opening all drawers and cabinets in the chest of drawers, and sealing bathroom accessories, to name a few.
One credit for the hot tray is that shipments can be re-commissioned quickly. Once the news arrives, Burke says, the shipment can resume transporting visitors in a few weeks; you’ll still have to board a whole team and navigate to the right destination.
But a hot disposition requires more maintenance and more staff. Each shipment has a “safe team” team: about 120 team members for a giant shipment. Among the required workforce, according to Burke of Carnival: a deck team to direct the shipment, a team of engineers to run electric power and propulsion, a medical team to satisfy the wishes of the workers’ body (especially at the time of the Covid-19), safety and enough cleaning and cooking personnel for all to be cared for and fed.
In case of hurricanes or other weather conditions, ships must be able to move. They will also have to comply with environmental, protective and other regulations, or threaten heavy fines, criminal fees and other penalties, Burke says. In 2016, for example, Carnival earned five years of probation and a $40 million fine for a pollution conviction.
But there’s a time limit for this half-time strategy: according to shipping analysts at Lloyd’s List shipping company, a hot design is only appropriate in the short term. After just six months, the ships would likely lose safe certifications that allow them to navigate legally.
Cold layers require fewer systems to operate and therefore only 40 team members: a bridge team, engine room operators, fireplace guards and hotel staff. But near-interrupted grinding operations make restarting more complicated and costly. According to the Lloyd’s Register layout guide, each and every corner of a ship, from the pump room to the dwellings, must be inspected for parts such as fuel and mold leaks; Electrical equipment, adding navigation systems, must be removed from the warehouse and reinstalled; and dehumidifiers will have to be disposed of before furniture and family parts can be cleaned and put back in place. This is why bloodless stops are considered advantageous only in the event of a multi-month interruption.
Burke says Carnival can move in that direction in the long run. According to Mathisen, Royal Caribbean has already been involved in this touch. Its fleet consists largely of dehumidifiers, deployed everywhere, from machine rooms to public spaces.
When in a position to depart, the reboot “can take weeks or even months,” he says, details delays in transporting crews to ships, bureaucratic recertification processes, or even costly investments in dry dock repairs.
A more radical option is to prevent the ship, close all systems, leave only a few emergency turbines in operation and a few team members and chimney guards in service. Cruise historian and Peter Knego paint a grim picture of what can happen in this scenario.
“The first thing to do is plumbing,” Knego said. “If you don’t have the plumbing active and it makes the toilet and running water in the system work, the rust settles, the pipe starts to disintegrate and then has primary problems.”
CVC systems and wiring are as follows. “And then just the fact that they’re mendacity in salt water, salty air, to break everything down very quickly,” Knego explains. “Literally, you have to destroy the infrastructure to do maintenance if a shipment has been idle for too long.” With long-term trays, disorders such as rot begin to arise.
If it sounds like a slow, painful death, some corporations simply rip off the bandage. In its second-quarter monetary record, Carnival announced plans to eliminate at least six older ships, which could potentially be sold to some other cruise or scrap line, for anyone’s most productive offering. The 24-year-old Costa Victoria de Costa Cruceros logo is said to be intended for a junkyard. Unfortunately, a boat out of the water is worth less than the sum of its parts.